Cans.wav

Cans.wav, also known as beercans.wav, cans.avi, and cans.mp3, refers to the sound Ghost makes after he gets exceptionally angry, usually during Radio Graffiti and Shoutouts, and rarely if he is provoked to where he sees a panda. It is made by Ghost throwing his microphone across his office, presumably into "all the crap [he] got around [...]". Causing Ghost to throw his microphone was once considered the epitome of trolling, although that was turned into simply an achievement when Ghost started doing the cans.wav several times per episode.

Contents

Causes and Origin

The most common theory for the origin of the sound is that Ghost supposedly has a large pile of empty beer cans laying around his office, which he begins throwing or smacking around when upset. Ghost has also been known to spill beer on his desk and lose his microphone in the supposed mountain of cans. After a cans.wav, he often shouts, "Give me the mic!", followed by another instance of cans. In especially large tirades, he may puke and has trouble getting himself together for up to 10 minutes afterward. On some occasions, Ghost's voice goes out due to him yelling so much.

In some cases, Ghost claims that he needs to get his ironically Mexican maid 'Consuela' to come back to the office to clean the place up after particularly violent tirades, some which often result in a rage quit. Ghost takes a notably long time to end his show when he has finally had enough, and usually goes through a long rant that includes calling out a number of groups he dislikes, most commonly the various portions of Junkyard America and the trolls themselves. However, for the most part, Ghost will pull himself back together and resume from where he left off after raging.

Many listeners question the authenticity of the sound (hence the name "cans.wav", implying it is an audio file that Ghost plays), but there is a good reason to believe the sound effect is created live. Each individual cans.wav sounds different from the last, in that you can hear either Ghost screaming, or him shouting curse words, while in other cases occasional bangs and glass noises are made. However, it is not clear that the sound effect actually comes from empty beer cans as is commonly speculated, and Ghost formerly claimed it wasn't cans, but unspecified "crap on [his] desk".

In the early 2016 episodes, when Ghost was forced to use a smartphone after his dog chewed on the mic wire, he tended to avoid using cans.wav because it was causing severe lag during the calls, sometimes even throwing him off the air for a while.

In Episode 300, Ghost acknowledged (officialized?) the fan term "cans.wav" as well as the belief that the sound effect is created by the rustling of beer cans, as he announced his intention to merchandise a limited number of beer cans consumed and subsequently throw around with his autograph on them, though he quickly started to question this decision after afruitbowl caller said he wanted to snort all of Ghost's saliva out of the can. Ghost claims he still intends to sell the cans, but has not done so for logistic reasons (the difficulty of shipping the cans) and has so far stuck to autograph postcards.

While the majority of cans.wavs come from Ghost raging at trolls, Ghost also sometimes cans.wav's out of general anger, whether at the news topics he brings up or rarely technical issues with the broadcast. These are sometimes called "self-cans" or "auto-cans". Ghost also sometimes cans.wavs out of laughter and not anger, as in Episode 343, when he cans.wav'd while laughing at Boogie and other YouTubers being demonetized.

Cans Inflation

During True Conservative Radio and early 2011 True Capitalist Radio, cans.wav was a rare occurrence; even a few cans.wav was enough to indicate a show of successful trolling, and "bad" episodes often had no cans at all; the notable exception is 14 cans in Conservative Episode 148 from 2009. At this time, even a single cans.wav was a major achievement and the mark of a good troll.

Over 2011 and 2012, the frequency of cans.wav gradually increased, so that Ghost cans'd virtually every episode, and in larger amounts in each individual episode. The "value" of getting cans.wav subsequently decreased as a form of "cans inflation", so that a good troll was expected to accrue a large number of cans over time. However, the effect was rare enough that trolls were still lauded for achieving it.

After the Return, cans inflation has significantly increased, to the point where news episodes considered bad-to-mediocre still have more cans than all but the highest-cans episodes from before the Return. The Cans High Score reached 36 with the start of the TCR Civil War, and most "good" episodes have cans.wav counts at least in the low teens.

With cans.wav as frequent as it is, it is arguably no longer a significant achievement for trolls, and more useful as a grading system based on their "cans rate". Successful trolls like Tub Guy, the African Booty Scratcher, and Twilie Atkins achieve cans with almost every call; on the other hand, a troll with a low cans rate risks being perceived as a failtroll.

The cans.wav inflation has reached an even higher rate with the start of The Ghost Show, with Episode 15 having a monumental 68 cans.wavs in the span of 3 and a half hours. Some trolls feel this has further devalued cans to the point of being an almost regular occurrence on the show that happens every few minutes, even without Radio Graffiti. This is mainly due to Ghost getting hit up by MediaShare trolls on a constant basis.

Current Records

TubGuy's chatroom reacts to 21 cans.wav

Highest Record

The current record for most instances of cans.wav in a single episode was 37. This occurred on The Ghost Show Episode 5, where Ghost was bombarded by MediaShare files, most notably the Ram Ranch song. However, this record was beaten with the fifteenth episode, with an overwhelming 68 cans.

The record for most cans in a single TCR episode is 36, which occurred in Episode 358, when Ghost was bombarded with tweets of #TeamEngineer, photos of Ghost's autograph being defaced and ejaculated on, and photoshopped images of people Ghost likes holding Engineer autographs, along with Ghost's autograph juxtaposed with peoplehe hates. He became repeatedly enraged and almost cancelled Radio Graffiti. This episode held the record for most cans in a single episode for about three years, until it was beaten by the fifth episode of The Ghost Show.

The longest lasting single cans.wav rage (non-interrupted) occurred at the end of Radio Graffiti in Episode 534 when RationalRyan played a splice of Ghost contradicting himself on not supporting anyone else but Herman Cain and Donald Trump, yet supported Jeb Bush back in 2011/2012. Resulting in Ghost cans.waving for 25 seconds before ending the show.

The third longest happened at the end of Radio Graffiti in Episode 435, where after a call by Tub Guy as a priest, a chopper which had been annyoing Ghost all broadcast returned, causing him to freak out and cans.wav for 21 seconds.

The fifth longest, with 15 seconds of cans, occurred at the end of Episode 383, when Tub Guy called in and asked Ghost if he wanted to see how many licks it would take to reach the center of his "tootsie pop," and in Episode 407, when someone told Ghost during Radio Graffiti that someone has already made porn of the Ponified Capitalistautograph.

The highest amount of chain cans.wav, when multiple calls in a row cause cans.wav, during Radio Graffiti is 5. This occurred on Episode 381, with foursplices being played back-to back by Benito Ghostini, Templeton Sanders, and Doremy Sweet. Their calls all got a cans.wav each, with an additional fifth cans.wav happening when people on Twitter accused Ghost of crying.

The highest amount of cans.wav caused by a single Shoutout name, as well as the highest chain of cans.wav in the show overall, is 8, when during Shoutouts in Episode 575, Ghost read the name, "True Barnyard Orgy Radio", and raged extremely hard because a hentai game known as "Breeding Season" was being paid $40k a month on Patreon, whilst he had gotten practically nothing for 10 years of doing the show, leading to a very lengthy chain of cans.wav.

Examples

This topic has attracted the attention of artists and photoshoppers, and so is popular enough to get its own gallery! Click here for the Fan Art section on Cans.wav.